


Denial, Desperation, Determination

by daisybrien



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alphynecentric, Alphys-Centric, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Desperation, F/F, Gen, Hidden Feelings, Hospitalization, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Character(s), Minor Injuries, Minor Spoilers, Minor Violence, Plot Theory, Pre-Canon, Pre-Game(s), Some Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-09 01:48:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5520905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisybrien/pseuds/daisybrien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alphys needs to learn to prepare for the worst.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Denial, Desperation, Determination

**Author's Note:**

> Some speculation on Undyne's eye and her determination.
> 
> Can someone stop me from watching meta videos on Youtube because then we all have to suffer from my highly improbable fan theories.

“You should prepare for the worst.”

The words bounce around in her skull painfully, echoing eternally along the cold white walls of the ward like a ghost, haunting her as she sits cradling herself in the stiff chair of the waiting room. She sits among the rows of the dejected; shoulders slouched, swallowing down the lump in her throat and the burning behind her watery eyes, trying to offer hopeless reassurances through weak smiles that crack their faces like pained grimaces. The cold of the hospital is unbearable, prickling at her skin, waves of lethargy washing over her as she rocks herself in a meager attempt at comfort. But even as those beside her hang their heads, lean back into their seats and slouch in their armor – they were the members of the guard who had refused to leave their captain, the illusion of dignity from their uniform broken by stifled sniffles and snores – she forces herself from falling into sleep, staring blindly at the floor.

Alphys hangs her head, burying her face in her hands, a muzzle to keep the tears that threaten to spill at bay. Her fingers open, a few stubborn tears falling through them and splattering onto the dirty tile below, if only to keep the darkness away. If she let herself fall into the dark, she doesn’t think she would come out, might scream until her throat was raw, reliving the horrors she had naively thought impossible. 

She shouldn’t be here, an intruder in the tension of the moment, nothing more than a love struck fool among the people that had earned the right to sit by Undyne’s ailing bedside, nursing wounds and broken spirits. But they had insisted she stay; they had even praised her – undeservingly, she thought - for her quick thinking, her ability to keep her panic at bay enough to speak between frantic gasps of air, yelling into the phone for the Royal Guard to send back up. She had been the one to see it happen, after all, had watched Undyne on her screen from her secluded little lab, giddy to see Undyne take a soul that would bring them one step closer to freedom and watching her attempt crumble into failure.

She is one of the first ones to see her once the doctors allow visitors, following in Asgore’s towering shadow as he leads them into the dim of her room. He is tired, a king carrying the burden of an sickly kingdom, exhausted as he shuffles forward humbly to accept the result of his unforgivable mistake, another as worthy of being his child fallen for his bidding and the duty of their freedom She feels the stares of the guard boring into her back, wonders if they see how unworthy she is of her royal title, nothing more than a name to refer to her pathetic form. Still, they usher her in, and she takes to Undyne’s bedside, uncaring in hiding the gravity of her concern.

The sight of Undyne is reality’s attempt to punch her in the gut, shunt her into the truth that she has tried so hard to avoid. She is pale, skin clammy and cold under her hands – ones that dance over her skin, delicate and worshipping, granting her the respect she deserved even as she lies prone and unmoving. Even in sleep, her face is contorted in the slightest of grimaces, aware of her agony as a blur behind her unconsciousness, tubes running from her nose and skin, keeping her from truly falling down. The left side of her head is covered in a patchwork of bandages, a mosaic of tape and fabric, blood blooming over the gauze that covers the torn mess of skin and organ of where her left eye used to be.

They should prepare for the worst, Alphys was told. She rejects their words, a desperate denial that wished Undyne back, ached to see toothy grin and sparkling eyes radiate at her again, gorgeous and healthy. But even this hope dwindles, carried in the soft attempts to keep Undyne tethered to life. There is nothing more to do than keep herself from lingering as she pulls wet rags over the drying skin of her face, keep from gagging at the sight and smell of the torn mess of flesh as they change her bandages.

She should prepare for the worst, nagging in the back of her brain even as she tries to stutter to herself, uttering tiny, useless assurances. It would keep her awake at night, the fear of waking and finding nothing more than a pile of dust in Undyne’s sheets, if closing her eyes didn’t already send her reeling into flashback, even blinking bringing the memory and the horror again. It is a shock each time as it had been the first; it had been so fast she could barely comprehend it, the human raising their arm for one last shot, hearing the bullet whizz past through her monitor, feeling her heart leap into her throat at the spout of blood arching from Undyne’s armor as her body crumpled to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.

Alphys should be ready for when she dies.

She really should.

But she keeps refusing.

They tell her to go home, shoo her away under the guise of making sure she gets the rest impossible while sitting in cramped hospital chairs. She makes her way back to her lab begrudgingly, scampering away into the darkness of it. When she looks into her bathroom mirror her face is gaunt, circles like bruises under her bloodshot eyes as she hunches over the counter, tears falling into her sink. It is only before she is about to clamber into her sheets and unload the aching built up in her blood through her tears and ugly sobbing that the idea strikes her.

Maybe it’s the exhaustion clouding her reasoning – not like it was ever great to begin with – or the misery that twists in her stomach that sends her searching through her lab. She is split as she fills up the syringe she finds with just the tiniest dose she can spare from her experimentation, one half of her in glee at the idea of saving her friend’s life, the other scolding her, loathing herself for being so reckless, so stupid. In the moment she doesn’t think she has another choice. 

She wonders how many days she’s been awake now, how long Undyne’s body has been lying weak and cold. Maybe she’s beginning to hallucinate from lack of sleep, the needle in her coat pocket feeling like a rock weighing her down, almost dragging her back, as if protesting her decision. She powers on, slipping into the room, heart hammering in her chest as she shuffles her way to the bed.

Alphys’ hands tremble as they reach for the syringe, shaking furiously as she brings it to the tacky scales of Undyne’s wrist. She hesitates, its sharp metal point pressed into her vein, just threatening to break the barrier of skin, and she shakes with tears as she wonders how awful she must be now, how low she has fallen in her desperation, how badly she has let her guilt and unrequited admiration cloud her judgment. 

Her fingers trace over Undyne’s, muscles limp and cold. She is unbelieving, almost disenchanted to see someone as strong as her, someone who seemed to radiate invincibility and strength be rendered so weak. There is no sign of her rising from bed, no indication that the blood that oozes from her wound will ever let up, that marred flesh will ever mend. She is so close to death that Alphys has to do something, anything to save her.

With a soft push, the needle breaks through Undyne’s skin, a small bubble of blood rising from the tiny pinprick. Alphys presses her thumb to the plunger, slumped and resigned as she watches each drop of determination slowly make their way through her sickly veins. She whispers apologies with a thick voice the more she depresses it - to Asgore, to Undyne, to every fallen body lying in the basement of her lab, the ones she was failing to save from their comatose, still stiff with death that had settled into their flesh and rendered muscles motionless and brittle - until there is nothing left in the needle to give. 

She isn’t there when Undyne opens her eyes.

The news leaves her elated, her laughter thick with tears as she rushes back after returning her needle with a heavy heart. Undyne is still pale, groaning in pain when she tries to raise herself up on the bed, any movement sending her nerves on edge, but her smile is still as brilliant as crystal behind her bandages when Alphys barges her way into her room. 

They laugh and talk through tears and enervation, relief dripping from every tired word they both sigh, both a reassurance to the other. They are happy to have the company of each other, both hiding the turbulence of their true feelings under the façade of friendship

“This is what I was afraid of,” Undyne mumbles to herself, when both of them have run out of things to talk about, sleep looming over her healing body like a raincloud. When Alphys asks what she means, she gets nothing but an earnest stare and a nimble squeeze of the hand that has her heart fluttering like bird in her ribcage, before she falls asleep again, getting her needed rest.

Alphys doesn’t mention what she does, only feels a little kernel of hope and pride knowing that what she did must have helped, even if in the smallest of ways. No one has to know she twisted the rules. There is no need to feel guilty, knowing Undyne took a turn for the better, in the end.

Months later, when the rest of them don’t, her happiness sours into regret, her pride a manic loathing that has her hoping dreadfully that the little dose she did give does nothing, and that counting the days until Undyne ends up like the rest is no more than a futile anxiety.


End file.
